RO
But surely as well Meridian would've been receiving a countdown that we couldn't hear, as to when they should start playing the programme?
NJ
Could I refer the honorable gentleman to previous discussions on TV Forum with regards to the ITV Circuits starting with the first sentence in this post:
https://www.tvforum.co.uk/forums/post1033927#post-1033927
Elsewhere on the forum and as part of the above thread it is easy to assume that from the on-screen output CITV have a nice big library full of programmes that Carlton, Yorkshire, Anglia etc have sent them copies of and everything comes from Birmingham, whereas in reality from behind the scenes Central would only have access to whatever they were airing on CITV that day and sod all else. So in other words to stick with the existing example if Wizadora falls off air because the tape gets chewed, all Central can do is throw up an apology caption and shout at Meridian to see if they can get the programme back.
So thanks to TV Forum all those breakdown captions we used to see along the lines of "We apologise for the loss of this programme, we'll try to get it back for you" wasn't actually too far from the truth. From the forum posts it sounds like it was a fun logistics case.
Neil Jones
Founding member
I’m surprised to hear that Meridian would have played out the programme. I was under the assumption that central would have played out tapes of the show.
Could I refer the honorable gentleman to previous discussions on TV Forum with regards to the ITV Circuits starting with the first sentence in this post:
https://www.tvforum.co.uk/forums/post1033927#post-1033927
Elsewhere on the forum and as part of the above thread it is easy to assume that from the on-screen output CITV have a nice big library full of programmes that Carlton, Yorkshire, Anglia etc have sent them copies of and everything comes from Birmingham, whereas in reality from behind the scenes Central would only have access to whatever they were airing on CITV that day and sod all else. So in other words to stick with the existing example if Wizadora falls off air because the tape gets chewed, all Central can do is throw up an apology caption and shout at Meridian to see if they can get the programme back.
So thanks to TV Forum all those breakdown captions we used to see along the lines of "We apologise for the loss of this programme, we'll try to get it back for you" wasn't actually too far from the truth. From the forum posts it sounds like it was a fun logistics case.
JA
Wasn't it only around the late 90s that Central would have started playing out all CITV programmes by themselves?
NJ
Apparently so according to this, started from the 1998 rebrand/relaunch:
https://web.archive.org/web/20071031075435/http://freespace.virgin.net/greg.taylor1/watched_it/citv.html
Neil Jones
Founding member
Wasn't it only around the late 90s that Central would have started playing out all CITV programmes by themselves?
Apparently so according to this, started from the 1998 rebrand/relaunch:
https://web.archive.org/web/20071031075435/http://freespace.virgin.net/greg.taylor1/watched_it/citv.html
IT
I slightly recall seeing a BBC1 breakdown years ago which is sadly no longer on YouTube. It's been on my mind for a while and I thought I would mention it here.
BBC1 was coming out of a programme (think it was either Neighbours or Holby City?) before a fault occurred going into a trailer and the breakdown slide was then hastily thrown up. (from the era of the dancer idents to be exact)
Tried looking for it since but as TheTVRoom's URL has been "excluded" from TheWaybackMachine, nothing was found.
Almost reminds me of a BBC1 breakdown near Christmas 2002 during a Wallace and Gromit short, which for some reason the full version of that has fallen off the face of the web. (I know this has been mentioned on the topic before)
BBC1 was coming out of a programme (think it was either Neighbours or Holby City?) before a fault occurred going into a trailer and the breakdown slide was then hastily thrown up. (from the era of the dancer idents to be exact)
Tried looking for it since but as TheTVRoom's URL has been "excluded" from TheWaybackMachine, nothing was found.
Almost reminds me of a BBC1 breakdown near Christmas 2002 during a Wallace and Gromit short, which for some reason the full version of that has fallen off the face of the web. (I know this has been mentioned on the topic before)
Last edited by itvblocks on 12 April 2019 11:58pm
SC
I have a feeling that’s YTV, but it could easily be any of the northern stations, like you say.
I notice there are points in that footage where the region opts back to the Channel 4 feed in vision only. That reminds me of an afternoon in late 1984, when Channel 4 in the Tyne Tees region opted out to show their commercials but only the audio from the commercials was heard. The Channel 4 “follows shortly” slides remained on screen throughout the breaks while we heard the various ads. This went on from about 2.30 until around 5pm, when partway through a break the screen went from the C4 slide to some kind of static/moving lines and then the ads appeared in vision shortly afterwards.
I’ve no idea what had gone wrong - evidently the stations could opt out in sound only (and perhaps vision only), not that I think they’d ever do so intentionally (though UTV notably faded the music up a few seconds after they rejoined the C4 caption during partly filled breaks, so they seemed to have equipment that was capable of more than just down and up fade through black when opting in and out). The opts were supposed to be automated, but for whatever reason several regions seemed to do them manually at least part of the time.
Another channel 4 ad break breakdown, this one is from 1984. Given there is an advert for Youngers Scotch Bitter, I'd suggest it's from either Border, Tyne Tees, Granada, or possibly Yorkshire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncGxxvs0xGo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncGxxvs0xGo
I have a feeling that’s YTV, but it could easily be any of the northern stations, like you say.
I notice there are points in that footage where the region opts back to the Channel 4 feed in vision only. That reminds me of an afternoon in late 1984, when Channel 4 in the Tyne Tees region opted out to show their commercials but only the audio from the commercials was heard. The Channel 4 “follows shortly” slides remained on screen throughout the breaks while we heard the various ads. This went on from about 2.30 until around 5pm, when partway through a break the screen went from the C4 slide to some kind of static/moving lines and then the ads appeared in vision shortly afterwards.
I’ve no idea what had gone wrong - evidently the stations could opt out in sound only (and perhaps vision only), not that I think they’d ever do so intentionally (though UTV notably faded the music up a few seconds after they rejoined the C4 caption during partly filled breaks, so they seemed to have equipment that was capable of more than just down and up fade through black when opting in and out). The opts were supposed to be automated, but for whatever reason several regions seemed to do them manually at least part of the time.
SP
Union issues I think.
The opts were supposed to be automated, but for whatever reason several regions seemed to do them manually at least part of the time.
Union issues I think.
SP
Some discussion of that one here https://www.tvforum.co.uk/forums/post1013752#post-1013752
I can't really imagine what would cause such an extended outage back in analogue days where even if things were dire it was usually possible to do some creative patching and plugging to get something on air.
I can't really imagine what would cause such an extended outage back in analogue days where even if things were dire it was usually possible to do some creative patching and plugging to get something on air.